Getting Kinetic
NO. 06 · SEPTEMBER 9, 2026
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Hi— Years ago, Katie and I hired a designer to help us pick curtains. The designer had a vision. Katie had opinions, but she’s polite, and the designer wasn’t really asking. The curtains came in. Katie hated them. Eventually we bought the ones she’d wanted all along, no designer involved. This time: I’m questioning my own method, in public. | |
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A TENSION
That experience is why the Team Workshop Method exists. I built it to be everything those designers weren’t: collaborative, humble, built to guarantee you’d love what came out of it. Seventeen years of client work later, I can tell you it works. People love the results. But here’s what’s been nagging me. The designer we fired had picked higher-quality, UV-resistant fabric. Her curtains would have survived the Memphis sun. The ones we loved faded. We always learn lessons the first few times we do things. Then, if we’re lucky, we get to re-learn them once we’re “wise.” Loved it and served by it are not the same thing. A method built to make sure the client is heard can quietly stop making sure the client is served. So while I have built a career around our own special way of doing things, I think it’s worth evaluating critically. | |
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FROM THE WORK
So we’re doing to the Team Workshop Method what we’d do to any established product: moving it forward without losing what already works. The part worth keeping is the listening. The part that’s aging is the reason the method was built: most of the workshop existed to help a room imagine something nobody could see yet. AI ended that problem. Anyone can look at three finished-feeling directions by day two now. Which frees the hours for the harder job the old method never had room for: judgment and measurement. Showing the trade-offs, not just the options. Measuring what worked and what didn’t. It means having conversations with our customers about financial and analytical goals, not just colors and feelings. It means having the UV-fabric conversation before anything gets bought. | |
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PUT IT TO WORK
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If you’ve got a process you’re proud of that was built against an old constraint, I’d love to hear how it’s holding up these days. — JD and the Simple Focus gang | |
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